Lyricist Loft lived on after the physical location closed—it became the name for the weekly YouMedia open mikes where a generation of local rappers found their voices. Hawkins came to YouMedia through the Digital Youth Network, which was founded by Nichole Pinkard, an associate professor at DePaul’s College of Computing and Digital Media; Hawkins was hired on as DYN’s first mentor. “He taught himself every digital media there is,” Pinkard says. “He could teach anything to kids.” DYN supplied mentors to YouMedia when it opened a space in the Harold Washington in 2009; Hawkins was among the first to mentor at YouMedia.
“There wasn’t a teen that he couldn’t connect with,” says poet Jennifer Steele, YouMedia’s Partnerships coordinator. Steele says Hawkins was a mentor to her in addition to the scores of young people he worked with—Chicago Public Library director of government and public affairs Patrick Molloy estimates some 5,000 teens have come through YouMedia since it opened. It’s hard to calculate just how many young people Hawkins personally worked with, but he left a deep impression on those he mentored.
“Brother Mike—he was an incredible listener,” Coval says. “He was also brilliant and could synthesize really complex, difficult ideas and conditions young people live through despite the city’s and country’s efforts to not have them live and he was pushing people to be their optimal selves.” Hawkins gave aspiring MCs and poets time and space to perform and the encouragement to stand in front of people. “He [would] always call us kings and queens and treat us with so much respect,” Chandler says. “We weren’t always these revolutionary artists . . . our influences and surroundings shaped us into us being this, and he was one.”
Hawkins was a spiritual father to a generation of Chicago rappers, but his influence extended beyond the world of hip-hop. He also mentored young educators, activists, and even the poet Malcolm London—he’s the cochair of the local chapter of Black Youth Project 100 and has helped organize local protests in response to the unrest in Ferguson. Hawkins had also been working with Steam Studio—a pop-up design studio for youth—which threw a show in the fall featuring Chandler and Noname Gypsy. Hale says Hawkins was also an accomplished photographer. “For about 15 years Chicago has been given stellar art and inspiration,” Hale says. “We just had our sunset.”